This was the original post to a new e-mail list, Square Dance 2050,
which was to be a discussion group by people who expected to be square
dancing in 2050 and wanted to discuss how to achieve that goal. In
the end, not much happened on that group—it never reached
critical mass. However, Patricia wrote an outstanding initial post,
and these questions are still relevant today. -- Clark

Solving the Age Gap

by Patricia Wahle, June 2001

As I see it, one of our biggest obstacles to keeping square dancing
alive is the age gap. I'm sure I don't need to inform any of you that
square dancing hasn't done a very good job of being
multi-generational. It needs to be multi-generational,
IMHO.
In the
70's, square dancing was appealing to people between the ages of about
20 & 80, which was anybody born after 1950. Unfortunately, it is still
appealing to anybody born after 1950, which is now people between the
ages of 50 & 80. Having about 1/2 the attendance we had in the 70's is
a mathematically sound result, because we're appealing to people
within a 30 year span instead of in a 60 year span.

It also isn't news to any of you that square dancing can appeal to
people born after 1950, and that younger generations can enjoy dancing
with people from a variety of ages. But there aren't very many of us
from our generations. Being truly multi-generational doesn't just
happen because we say we'd like it to. We have to make an effort to
include each new generation to keep an activity multi-generational.

I've said a lot of times in whatever forum was available some of the
things that would help to include the next generations, but it usually
seems to fall on deaf ears. However, I can see that all changing in
about 10 years. I agree with the sentiment I've heard from many people
that square dancing as we know it will only last another 10 to 15
years. Our current leaders will no longer be doing what they're doing
by then. We're going to have quite a shake up because we've relied on
the same people for so long, but we can and we will find new ways to
do things. The way I see it, we have 10 years to start this train
heading in the direction we need it to go. Then we'll really get a
chance to see it take off.

What things do you see that need to be changed to appeal to your
generation? Other generations around you? What do you think your
co-workers want in an activity?

How can we better integrate the under-50 generations into square
dancing? What things need to change? What can stay the same?

How do we look hipper and still be the same activity that we enjoy?
How do we open up our doors to new people without losing the people we
have?

Some of the issues that I think need to be addressed are:

Clubs & Volunteers:

People are not the joiners they used to be. Club
involvement in any activity is down. At least at the entry level, we
need to have dances that are put on by a (possibly paid) committee,
where the people can come just to dance. Once they're hooked, they
might want to volunteer or join a club, but they're not going to jump
at an opportunity to join clubs and committee meetings before they're
hooked on square dancing.

Singles:

With the number of people who are single, we can't afford to
exclude this group of people, and again, saying we'd like to include
singles is not enough, it doesn't just happen. Many people do come to
square dancing to share an activity with their significant other and
don't want to split up and dance with other people all night. But
singles rotations help to make sure that all singles get a chance to
dance if we square up as couples. If there are a lot of singles at a
dance who are the same sex and can't dance the other part, if every
couple would form a habit of splitting up one tip each night to dance
with singles, the singles could dance every tip with someone.

Teen clubs and Family clubs:

Teen clubs often have trouble financially
supporting themselves because teens don't have jobs, and family clubs
who offer a discount to families can also start to have difficulties.
It struck my attention when Kip Garvey posted on sd-callers recently
that he was the only 1 dancer out of a large teen group that kept
dancing into adulthood. Why support teen clubs if they only give us 1
dancer on average? Because that club gave us more than just 1 dancer,
because of the type of dancer it gave us. Most of our most dedicated
callers and dance leaders started dancing as teens. That 1 dancer
that kept dancing from that teen club has probably taught hundreds of
dancers, entertained hundreds of dancers, and taught other people who
have taught and entertained hundreds of dancers. I've been noticing
as I look though the resumes of the people running for the
BOG
of
CALLERLAB
that most of them started as teens. If we don't have teens
now, we will lose 1/2 or more of our leaders for the year
2030, even if we get them one per club. It is important to help teen
clubs because it helps the overall health of square dancing.

Music selection:

Most callers don't get new music because they have
mostly older people who don't want to listen to rap music all night.
But we don't have to switch over to an entirely new age music program
to help with the age gap. It's amazing what just one song in a night
from their generation can do to make people feel like they are one of
the many people who are a part of this activity. Can we encourage
callers to play at least one song each night for the younger
generations if they have even one dancer there from that generation as
a way to say they are welcome there also?

Dress code:

In spite of the recent relaxations by some organizations
in the dress code, the Nationals this year will again have monitors
who will kick people out for improper attire. IMHO, those same
monitors should have another job: to count the number of dancers under
30 they see there, because yes, those two jobs are related. The dress
code gets a little more outdated with each new generation. Some
people say we need a dress code so that people don't show up in
unwashed, tattered clothing, but I say why can't we use something that
is part of today's society, like business casual, or something. If my
work place had the dress code that square dancing had, I could sue
them for discrimination and win. Why should my social activity be so
different?

Attitudes toward other generations:

I remember a post on sd-callers
that we wouldn't want to market toward
generation-X
because we don't want a bunch of purple-haired dancers. Even if we
imagined for a minute that we really didn't want to dance
people with the wrong hair color, generation-X isn't everyone under
50, it is a particular generation. I happen to know that I am not in
generation-X, but I think my sister is. Most people in generation-X
don't have purple hair anymore, especially the boys who are starting
to bald, and no longer want to draw attention to their
hair. Generation-X is now approximately 30, but we still have
an attitude of not wanting to recruit them. Because they had purple
hair when they were teenagers. Can we adapt to the fact that they've
changed and look at who they are now? What's really wrong with purple
hair anyway?

Geographical differences:

IMHO, Callerlab had the right idea when it
set up international standards 25 years ago. It is good for the
activity if people can move from place to place and be able to
continue to dance, and it seems to get more important with every new
generation. It's a small world and only getting smaller. People can
and do move around a lot because of their jobs or families or a need
to "see the world." Many regions are still doing things the way they
used to do things in spite of Callerlab's suggestions. As the people
who've "always done it that way" start to leave the activity, do we
have more of a chance of standardization. Is more standardization just
going to put shackles on each region and limit what we can do?

Competing activities:

There are a lot of different activities that
people want to take part in. We have two options: either convince
people that they should choose square dancing above all other
activities, or format square dancing so it will fit as one of many
activities. I think the solution includes some of both. By the time
you're committed to 2 weekends a month for your club and you're
supposed to visit other clubs to be sociable, that leaves you at most
1 weekend a month to pursue other activities. Also, IMHO, one of our
biggest killers has been that we created too many "special"
dances. You can't possibly try to attend all of them and still have a
life, so attendance goes down at all of them and none of them seem
very "special" anymore.

Flourishes:

Too often it seems we stop people from having fun in the
name of having fun. Dancers are going to do things on their own that
aren't exactly the way the caller taught them. They are people with
personalities, not robots, and they should be encouraged to express
their personalities and have fun with the other people in the
square. Unfortunately, a lot of flourishes that people add make it
difficult for other dancers in their square to dance. Instead of
discouraging flourishes, we should have workshops on how to add your
own flourishes effectively, without disrupting the square. Keeping
your place whenever another dancer needs to interact with you,
remembering which way to roll if you went the other way, changing
places smoothly, etc.

These last two issues aren't really generational, as much as general
square dance issues.

Dancer ability:

Part of poor dancer ability problems deals with
teaching problems, but leaders also have to have the courage to
quietly and politely ask the people who cannot dance and cannot learn
to dance to not return. Losing that 10% can double your dance
attendance in a year because the people who do come will have more fun
and they will want to do this activity more often. It is hard to do,
and noticing and being sure that any particular dancer needs to leave
is difficult, but it is necessary to have a fun activity. Square
dancing is not like other activities where you can flounder by
yourself and not affect anyone else's fun. It is a team activity and
we have to be able to work with each other.

Where we dance:

Many city downtown areas have gone down hill and are
quite frankly not safe places to be. But many of the places where
we've always danced, the Czech cultural center, the Women's club, the
VFW, are located in these areas. Then there's the churches: I
wouldn't want to discriminate against anyone from another religion,
and I'd be perfectly happy to dance with people from other religions
(and do, in fact), but are Jews & Muslims going to come to the
Protestant church for their social activity?? We need a recognizable
place to dance that is in a nice part of town near where a lot of
people often pass. At least as a place where we have beginner
lessons, we need a place that people will see as "the square dancing
place" as they pass by. If they were interested in square dancing but
couldn't join when they last heard about it, they'll know where to go
to find square dancing. The good places in the good parts of town are
expensive. If we want to grow with society, we have to grow with
inflation, too. Now there's another can of worms, the price!

I guess my "dream" square dancing would have a non-profit organization
that leases a store front in a mall and holds beginner dances every
night. Regular dances would be either club run or organization run.
There'd be a singles rotation or people would be welcome to square up
as singles at all dances. Couples would split up at least one tip
each night and dance with singles or friends from other couples.
Families would be welcomed with a discount and people would make an
effort to include the families. Callers would choose music with a
variety of types and ages for each dance. There would be no dress
code for dances. Dances around the world would follow the same call
lists. There'd be 4 big "special" dances each year within each area,
other dances would be more like workshops and smaller dances. Dancers
would be taught multiple applications of calls. Dancers would be
encouraged to "whoop it up" and add their own styling to the dance.
Dancers who are not fun to dance with would be talked to and possibly
eventually asked to leave. And I'm sure there are some other things I
haven't thought about.

What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? What issues do
you see in square dancing? What needs to be changed in square
dancing? What can be changed? How can we change it? What are the
most important issues?

If you have answers or opinions to these questions, write them up and
e-mail them to me. I may
collect them and add them to the end of this page. Please include
where you are from, if you are a caller or a dancer, the year you were
born and the year you started square dancing -- Clark